The last time the Atlanta Falcons won a playoff game, it was Jan. 6, 2018, and Dan Quinn’s team beat the Los Angeles Rams, 26-13, in the Wild Card Round.
If you want to know how long ago that was, current Falcons team president Matt Ryan was the quarterback, and coming off a 2016 NFL MVP season. Rams head coach Sean McVay was a rookie head coach. Julio Jones was in his prime, and Adrian Clayborn was Atlanta’s sack leader.
Since then, there’s been all kinds of change in the ATL. Quinn gave way to Raheem
Morris, who gave way to Arthur Smith, who gave way to Raheem Morris, who has now given way to Kevin Stefanski. Ryan was traded to the Indianapolis Colts in March 2022, and the team has had a different primary quarterback every year since — from Marcus Mariota to Desmond Ridder to Kirk Cousins to Michael Penix Jr. The Cousins thing didn’t work out at all. Now, Tua Tagovailoa is in town to compete with Penix Jr. to try and bring any clarity to the game’s most important position.
On the good side, the Falcons have the NFL’s best running back in Bijan Robinson, who is now appropriately paid. The receiver group is good enough to magnify the right quarterback’s efforts. The offensive line is above-average, and the defense had all kinds of juice.
But until this team gets the right quarterback, the Falcons will be rolling around in the dirt. Again. Which means that either Tagovailoa or Penix must establish more than pure placeholder status. Sad to say for two guys who were selected fifth overall in 2020 (Tagovailoa) and eighth overall in 2024 (Penix), but that’s where things stand.
Historically, Stefanski has preferred to lead with the run game, so the Falcons’ primary strength fits perfectly with that. But how can the new head coach take things to a new level? Or, do the 2026 Falcons join the likes of the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings in that unfortunate “We have everything set but the quarterback” group? It’s a bad place to be, and these Falcons have been there for too long, though not for lack of effort.
Let’s say that the Penixvialoa machine is just good enough to keep itself out of trouble. In that case, everyone else will need to raise their games accordingly if the playoffs are to be in view for the first time in a decade. Not just the stars, but also the guys whose names are not familiar to the national audience. To that end, I’ve identified three Hidden Gems for the 2026 Falcons — one underrated veteran, one underrated free agent, and one underrated draft pick.
Underrated veteran: Safety Xavier Watts
“It’s funny, you create these clusters of players at every position and, and obviously you have needs, and best on board, and there’s a lot of things that go into this. When I kept putting my safety cluster together, we were looking at this third to fourth round as kind of like the honey-hole for that. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even put [him] on it, because I had him as a second-round guy, and I thought he was going to be long gone. If we had had our second, he would have definitely been part of that conversation. The fact that we didn’t have that second anymore, I thought he was out of the conversation, and then he ends up being there.”
That’s what Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said of Notre Dame safety Xavier Watts after the Falcons absolutely stole Watts with the 96th overall pick in the third round of the 2025 draft. Based on his tape, I had Watts as a borderline first-rounder, and I have no idea to this day why the hell he fell as far as he did.
Good news for Ulbrich, though, because he got to put Watts next to veteran safety Jessie Bates III and reap the benefits. In his rookie season, Watts allowed 21 catches on 30 targets for 341 yards, 152 yards after the catch, three touchdowns, five interceptions, six pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 101.5. He also had 71 tackles and 15 stops, and he was at his best against some pretty heavy offenses.
Just ask the Los Angeles Rams.
You need great safeties to compete with NFL offenses that are more multi-dimensional than ever, and the Falcons have one of the best duos in Watts and Bates. 2026 could be even better as Watts continues to refine his game with the help of Bates’ veteran acumen.
Underrated free agent: EDGE Azeez Ojulari
In 2025, the Falcons ranked second in sacks with 57, behind only the Denver Broncos’ 68. They also ranked 12th in pressure rate at 23.6%. Pretty nice turnaround from a 2024 Falcons defense that had the NFL’s second-fewest sacks with 31 (only the New England Patriots had fewer with 28), and a 20.0% pressure rate that was the league’s eighth-lowest.
A lot of different people contributed to that uprising. Atlanta’s blitz rate of 33.4% was the NFL’s second-highest behind only the Minnesota Vikings’ 44.3%, because Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores is a madman. Brandon Dorlus, Jalon Walker, Zach Harrison, and the delightfully named Ruke Orhorhoro were among the biggest on-field contributors, and rookie James Pearce Jr. had an 11-sack, 45-pressure season to lead the pack.
Now, things are far less certain. Pearce is facing a lengthy suspension for his off-field issues, and Walker, another gifted rookie, suffered a torn ACL in training camp and is out for the entire 2026 season. Add Kaden Elliss’ return to the New Orleans Saints in free agency, and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich has a few things to figure out if his defense is to repeat 2025’s level of disruption.
One thing the Falcons did to stem the tide this offseason was to give Azeez Ojulari a one-year, $1,402,500 contract. The New York Giants selected the 6’3”, 240-pound Ojulari with the 50th overall pick in the second round of the 2021 draft out of Georgia, and when healthy, Ojulari has shown his potential. He had 10 sacks and 42 pressures as a rookie, and seven sacks with 22 pressures in 2024, his final season with Big Blue.
Why was Ojulari available on the cheap? Well, he signed a one-year, $3 million contract with the Philadelphia Eagles before the 2025 season, and barely got the car out of the garage before a hamstring injury ended his season at just 67 snaps.
The Falcons were unperturbed by the recent past, hoping that what Ojulari showed in 2024 is more what’s left on the bone.
“He plays hard,” Falcons general manager Ian Cunningham said of Ojulari in March. “He’s physical. He’s got some rush. He’s got long arms. He plays with the tenacity that we’re looking for. It gives us a player that fits what ‘Brich’ [Ulbrich] looks for in linebackers in terms of the height, weight, speed, but also gives him a chance to come in here and compete for a spot.”
Let’s hope that Ojulari can retain the speed and relentlessness of his earlier seasons. The Falcons are counting on it more than they imagined they would.
Underrated draft pick: WR Zachariah Branch
When you get into draft evaluation each offseason, it becomes clear pretty quickly that some college teams put their players in positions that do them absolutely no favors. One of my favorites from the 2025 All-Misfits team was Georgia receiver Zachariah Branch. In 2025, the 5’8⅝”, 177-pound Branch caught 81 passes on 93 targets for 811 yards and six touchdowns.
For a guy his size, Branch had no issue hanging on the outside of the formation; 20% of his snaps came there as opposed to the slot. Given the 4.35-second 40-yard dash speed Branch showed at the scouting combine, and his ability to singe defenses deep when given the opportunity, his screen rate last season was just off-the-charts nuts.
Per Sumer Sports, Branch ran the most screen routes in the NCAA last season with 62, and I was able to ask him about that when we watched tape together in early April before the Falcons selected him with the 79th overall pick in the third round.
“I’m a dynamic player,” Branch told me. “Once the ball gets in my hands, I can make something happen at any moment in the game. And those are momentum changes as well. I’ll be able to take a screen, you know, 8 yards. And now it’s second-and-2 rather than you do a different play or whatever the case may be, and it doesn’t work or whatever it is. And now it’s second-and-10 again.
“So, those things are definitely like an extension of the run game, I feel like, just to help you set yourself up for better situations down and distance-wise. Those were working for us as well. We have great blockers on the outside. That was something that was very helpful for us. Our tight ends took pride in blocking, and our receiver corps took pride in blocking as well. I never had to worry. Like I’m just focused on the ball. As soon as the ball comes, I’m focused on the ball. I already know my guys around me are going to do their job. You know, I never had to worry in my mind. So I think that was very successful for us as a team.”
An entirely diplomatic answer, but you should also know that this young man is the nephew of Hall of Fame Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders speed receiver Cliff Branch, and you weren’t going to see Al Davis approving a bunch of dinky-ass screens for his best vertical receiver. Cliff was going over the top.
Fortunately, the Falcons seem to see more in the rookie.
“Zachariah is wired the right way,” Stefanski said in late July. “That’s something we knew going into the draft, and certainly have figured out about him spending so much time with him through the offseason program into training camp. He’s somebody that really puts in the effort on a day-to-day basis. Again, that was no surprise because that’s what [Georgia Head Coach] Kirby [Smart] told me. That’s what all his coaches have told us in the past. And it’s true. You watch him at practice, and he goes and he goes and he goes. He’s got the right makeup for what we want him to be.”
Hopefully, whatever the Falcons want Zachariah Branch to be is a receiver who is allowed to actually run routes past the line of scrimmage.
